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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Sunday, June 29, 2008

"To reduce paper consumption, local elementary schools are having students practice their handwriting skills at area grocery store bakeries. More news at 11."

If this was the visual, you'd have to believe it, wouldn't you? Check out how the word "happy" is in all caps, but "birthday" is not. And then, inexplicably, the name is in cursive. It's like the writer was practicing different handwriting styles - or 3 toddlers each took turns writing.

Hey, the average person should know that the word 'birthday' is longer than the word 'happy', right? Can we agree on that? Good. Now look where this person started writing 'birthday'. Yeeeah.

This whole word-spacing thing wouldn't have been an issue, of course, if the person responsible had simply turned the cake right-side up. (You did notice it's upside-down, right? Of course you did, faithful Cake Wrecks reader!)

But perhaps worst of all is the fact that it looks like the yellow Teletubby poo'd out the whole inscription. Seriously, just look at it. Tell me that writing doesn't look the teensiest bit fecal.

It was probably not a real cake decorator that wrote on that cake. I used to decorate cakes for a grocery store and after I left for the day the deli clerks would write on cakes people picked out from the ready made case - it looked just like the writing on this cake. I often came in the next day to cakes that people refused to pay for after someone attempted to write on it.Susan

It's not that I think that Teletubbies don't poo, or that it's too gross to talk about, but this absurd idea that their poo is the same colour as their fur. I find that an abhorrent display of ignorance of the biology of telegordus tubiventus.

I second Susan: If you walk into the grocery store when there are no decorators on duty, pick up a pre-decorated cake, and ask them to write on it, you get whomever is standing closest to the bakery. Good luck with that!

I second what Liz C and anonymous said. In college I worked for a year in a deli at a busy grocery store. Because I was one of only two guys that the department had I was always put on the 3PM to 10PM shift to do the closing duties. After 7PM there were no cake decorators and if some person came in who hadn't thought about ordering a cake in advance, I often gave them a cake that looked quite a bit like this one - and that was using my best penmanship.

"Usually the flowers would be on the top of the cake, with the vines draping down..."Those were flowers?

Wow, thanks for clearing that up, Mickie. I couldn't figure out what the aggressive triangles an humongous blots stood for.It looks like they let little kids decorate the cakes, before doing the writing.

The ALL-CAPS "Happy" in "Happy Birthday" seems to be a common sight. I keep thinking it's some kind of side effect to concentrated food coloring exposure because I see it all the time. Yell it with me, "HAPPY Birthday.............Lori"

PS: I also used to work in a grocery store deli/bakery. I would warn them and warn them and warn them that my demo of piping out the name on a napkin would be my best work and they would insist on having me try on the cake. I actually had to use the phrase, "I warned you" when some lady got angry.

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A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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